UX Quotes

Content Quotes

“Start with the content. Sometimes designers and developers forget that this is why people come to your site to begin with. Craft it lovingly and serve it to your users with a minimum of distraction, like a well-plated dish; don’t just heap it all together like it’s a buffet. You worked hard on your content… celebrate it. “ – Aaron Gustafson (source)

“We must be sure to create a rich, nuanced landscape that lends itself well to the kind of organic, natural exploration that benefits our readers… If what we find changes who we become, we have to be vigilant about creating content worth exploring, worth discovering.” – Amber Simmons (source)

“How can companies better connect to its customers? The answer is simple: Speak like people, not like machines… More and more, people are craving authentic experiences from the world around them, and that means a simple human-to-human connection. In our ‘user experience’ world, this means when people use a website, software, product, etc., people should somehow experience the people that created it. Connection.” – Bill DeRouchey (source)

“Life is conversational. Web design should be the same way. On the web, you’re talking to someone you’ve probably never met – so it’s important to be clear and precise. Thus, well structured navigation and content organization goes hand in hand with having a good conversation.” – Chikezie Ejiasi (source)

“Usability and technical performance only get you on the playing field. What gives you the winning edge is persuasive, useful content….Let’s get serious about content, for it’s key to helping customers and differentiating our companies, our products, ourselves.” – Colleen Jones (source)

“View content less as a means of transacting relationships and more as an opportunity to make them flourish. With that perspective, you will be more likely to take the time to craft content that cultivates deeper relationships with your customers–and that can transform them into your advocates.” – Colleen Jones (source)

“If we continue to treat content as an extra to information architecture, to content management or to anything else, we miss a bright opportunity to influence users. Content is not a nice-to-have extra. Content is a star of the user experience show. Let’s make content shine.” – Colleen Jones (source)

“Technology creates the context for persuasion, but content persuades. Technology helps get content to the right people at the right time. The content still has to influence. Delivering the wrong content at the right time is as bad as delivering the right content at the wrong time.” – Colleen Jones (source)

“Our websites could help people help themselves-and the people around them-by guiding them into good decisions… When I think about that potential, I’m convinced that we have more than an opportunity to say the right words at the right time. We have a responsibility to do so. Let’s embrace the responsibility, not shirk it, by investing in words that zing.” – Colleen Jones (source)

“It’s time we designers stop thinking of ourselves as merely pixel people, and start thinking of ourselves as the creators of experiences. And when it comes to experience on the web, there’s no better way to create it than to write, and write well.” – Derek Powazek (source)

“It’s the designer’s job to think about your site the way a user does, and tell them what they need to hear, and when they need to hear it… Design is about communication, and it takes more than pixels to communicate.” – Derek Powazek (source)

“Finally after all these years of preaching that ‘content is king’…companies are going to understand that what is going to drive the business model is creating the shared reference with their customers, making sure that everyone is on the same page and you do that, by and large, through content.” – Eric Reiss (source)

“Content makes the sale, delivers the service and builds the brand. The architecture is the container of the website, but content–well, it’s the content in the container. We don’t buy from iTunes because of its architecture; we buy because of its music. Great information architecture is invisible so that the content can shine through.” – Gerry McGovern (source)

“How do we professionally manage content? We don’t. We shouldn’t manage content in the same way that we shouldn’t manage technology. Content and technology are merely a means to an end. What is the end? The end is the task the customer wishes to complete. That is what we should manage.” – Gerry McGovern (source)

“Good writing for the web is about creating communications in which people can find what they need, understand what they find, and act appropriately on that understanding in the time and effort that they think it is worth. Plain language is part of user-centered design.” – Ginny Redish (source)

“Users want to construct their own experience by piecing together content from multiple sources, emphasizing their desires in the current moment. People arrive at a website with a goal in mind, and they are ruthless in pursuing their own interest and in rejecting whatever the site is trying to push.” – Jakob Nielsen (source)

“Instead of a predefined narrative, websites must support the user’s personal story by condensing and combining vast stores of information into something that specifically meets the user’s immediate needs. Thus, instead of an author-driven narrative, Web content becomes a user-driven narrative.” – Jakob Nielsen (source)

“A work of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable. When they are in synthesis. In other words, when they fuse. When form predominates, meaning is blunted… When content predominates, interest lags.” – Paul Rand (source)

“Writing for your website shouldn’t be an extracurricular activity appended to anyone’s work description. Your content deserves better as it is the hardest working part of your website. Your content sells your services, captures the interest of potential customers, guides users through your site to achieve the goal they set out to do, instructs them on how to purchase from you, collects their information, lets people know the terms and conditions for a transaction with you, describes the unique collection you have for sale, rewards them for their brand loyalty, and introduces customers to the positive experience they get shopping with you.” – Relly Annett-Baker (source)

“There will always be a need for dialogue, and if we are to have a meaningful conversation with our users, we have to facilitate the conversation with an interface that welcomes them with open arms… By asking users to engage on a personal level, we are creating a relationship based on shared ownership of knowledge and value. And best of all, it doesn’t feel like work. Actions really do speak louder than words.” – Zeus Jones (source)